If you’ve visited any of the mini-series on leadership in tools4trenches, you may remember that I define godly leadership simply as influencing others to follow us in a good direction. Most of a leader’s focus is for the future actions of their people. Counseling assists leadership by helping anyone who is stuck or wayward to get back on track. But most of the focus is in the “here and now” for an individual’s clearer discernment and decisions: their current expectations, purpose, treasures, and hope. By “peer-counseling” I’m simply referring to the free help we can give because we care about the other person. Below the video I briefly explain how I identified these four elements.

As you watch this particular video, I offer the following prompts for discussion throughout this miniseries:

Considering the topic of the video below, which is easiest for you to enable another person to discern for godly decisions: their expectations, current purpose, deeper treasures, or hope?

Which of those four is most difficult for you?

Think of someone who frequently seeks you (or someone close to you) for counsel. Which do they usually emphasize: their expectations, purpose, heart-level treasure, or hope?

Which do they tend to overlook or resist?

Name a few specific objectives (changes in what they currently treasure, believe, or do) that person would need to make to begin getting “in-stuck” or back on track in a godly direction.

What gaps or hurdles would you and they need to address first, and why

And, lastly, toward what heart-level changes would you lead them to sustain beyond your time with them?

Good counseling should eventually address at least four issues of the heart that I noted above. When the Lord Jesus had one of His first talks with His disciples, He knew they had gotten stuck and off-track from the intent of God’s law (to lead them to Him), so He talked to them about their expectations, purpose, treasures, and hope. Those were the general themes of His sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7.

In the Beatitudes (5:1-12), the Lord describes a blessedness that did not fit their (or our) expectations to encourage them to rethink their worldview. And in response, in verses 13-20 He called them to His purpose: revealing His glory of saving and transforming the hearts of sinners to follow Him. Thus, from 5:21-6:4, He focused on common concerns of outward behavior and revealed them to be matters of heart-level treasures. So all of Matthew 6:5-7:27 deals with the substance of real hope: trusting in God through Jesus, not our religious acts, our possessions, or trying to make others or our circumstances change, just trusting in Jesus at the heart-level so we follow Him into real Life.